Hand-held snack items and methods for producing them are well known in the art. Examples of such snack items include granola bars, breakfast bars, cereal bars, and grain cakes such as rice cakes, corn cakes and popcorn cakes. The grain cakes are made by a method wherein the grain is expanded in an enclosed chamber in the shape of a disk or cake. In a typical method a premeasured quantity of grain is fed onto a heated piston. The piston and cereal grain are then advanced by a hydraulic cylinder into a heated female mold to create a small, hermetically sealed chamber enclosing the cereal grains. Heat and superatmospheric pressure are thereby applied to the cereal grains until, at a predetermined time, the pressure in the chamber is suddenly released by retracting the hydraulic cylinder. The suddenly depressurized chamber is not, however, sufficiently opened to release the cereal grains, but instead the hydraulic cylinder is retained in a substantially closed, but vented position. Therefore, as the pressure is released, the cereal grains expand to substantially fill the chamber, and while still in the plastic state bond together to form a small cake or cracker. The hydraulic piston is then fully retracted to open the chamber, and the cake is mechanically ejected. These cake-forming devices are most frequently used with rice as the cereal grain since rice is capable of relatively easy expansion into a self-supporting cake.
One issue concerning such hand-held snack items is their appearance. The snack items often have an unremarkable appearance, usually due to the fact that they are prepared from grains. One way to improve the appearance of such snack items to make them more appealing is to attach attractive food items to their surface. For example, chocolate chips could be attached to their surface.
Additionally, a complaint often raised concerning such hand-held products, and especially grain cake such as rice cakes, is that they have little or no flavor. To address the flavor concern, especially for grain cakes, flavored versions of grain cakes have been introduced into the marketplace. Examples of such flavored grain cakes include butter flavored, caramel flavored, cheese flavored and chocolate flavored grain cakes. However, the grain cakes could be even further improved by attaching flavoring agents, such as chocolate chips, cinnamon powder, etc., to the surface of the grain cakes.
One problem encountered when developing these more appealing hand-held snack items, including the improved grain cakes, is that until now edible heat-sensitive flavoring materials, such as chocolate chips and cinnamon powder, could not be used. This is because in the processing of such snack items, and especially the grain cakes, the snack items would have to be coated with heat-sensitive food materials and then dried in a heated oven. The heat of the oven in this drying step has prevented the use of heat-sensitive food materials in that they would not be protected and would melt during such a heating operation. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a hand-held snack item, and especially a grain product, that has heat-sensitive food materials, including flavoring materials, applied thereto. The present invention further provides a method for preparing such hand-held snack items.